ISO 45001: What Has Changed In The Last 6 Months?

Worldwide over 7600 people die each day from work-related accidents or diseases – that’s over 2.78 million every year. All of these people would have attended their work, their office, their factory thinking it was just another day. They most likely had plans for the weekend after or would have said goodbye to their family thinking they’d see them again. It’s a heart-wrenching statistic and what makes it worse is that it’s an avoidable one.

The ISO 45001 has been designed to reduce this. Released in March 2018, the document sets out to provide a robust and effective set of processes for improving work safety in global supply chains. ISO 45001 is the world’s first International Standard for occupational health and safety.

Designed to help organisations of all sizes and industries, ISO state that the new International Standard is expected to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses around the world, bringing the total number of fatalities down.

The introduction of ISO 45001 is a cause for celebration for health and safety professionals. The new standard will help organisations provide a safe and healthy work environment for workers and visitors by continually improving their Occupational health.

The UK began its development of a UK standard BS 8800 about 25 years ago with the long-term intention that this should be internationalised.

The format of the standard follows the ISO high-level structure (HLS) and uses common terms and definitions that will be familiar to many following the revisions to ISO9001, 14001, 27001 and 55001. Organisations will be able to integrate/align 45001 requirements and avoid unnecessary duplication, integrating the requirements into their business processes. This means that silo management should be something of the past and that these areas of operation cannot be micromanaged as separate entities.

The approach is risk-based Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) and is focused on minimising the risk of harm in the workplace. Occupational issues are of equal concern to accidents and a key component of the management of risks.

All the participants in the committee have worked very hard to achieve the consensus necessary to take the new standard forward. It is hoped that organisations around the world will adopt this standard in the same way that ISO9001/ISO14001 has been adopted and that that is will make a real contribution to the improvement of OH&S of workers.

“With reference to 45001 or the old 18001, our system of Health and Safety provides the client with the tools for gaining compliance to the ISO 45001. Basically ISO 45001 is an external audit by a 3rd party who want to check that their H&S System ticks all the boxes under the body. In theory the client has to prove that they have compliance in place when providing evidence and the fact that they are carrying out the “Plan, Check, Do and Act” under their H&S Policy too. We at ELAS help, when we undertake our Health and Safety Audits, to see if they are reviewing there documentation and recording the likes through monitoring.

Using our policies, risk assessments and monitoring forms etc they will have started the process, but really it is up to the client to ensure that these documents are reviewed periodically or at least annually as we dictate. When the client does not monitor their H&S, we generally pick this up and record it in a report to them stating what they have done but more importantly what they need to do.”

ISO 45001, the international standard for health and safety management came in to effect in March 2018 and replaced OHSAS 18001. Those who were previously certified to OHSAS 18001 have been given the opportunity to migrate to ISO 45001 within the next three years, which means your business doesn’t have to break the bank to stay certified.*

*Safety & Health Practitioner 2018 Legislation

If you would like to discuss which services are available to qualify for the ISO 45001, get in touch with a member of our H&S team. Call 08450 50 40 60.

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